Day 35 Stillwater to Washaba

92/2226/17 Poor sleep last night in Stillwater as the Dog Dog guys were up drinking and making noise till 1:30a, I overheard a shout match with another guest and the drunks, so I didn't get involved and that did not quiet them down. Leave just after 7a and stop at McD's down the street for burrito and coffee, then get lost. Go all the way back into town looking for route 26 and can't find. There is a footrace and lots of buses, traffic and runners milling about and I ask three for directions and get three differing answers, so I try my luck and after 18 wandering miles find my route 26, aka the Stagecoach trail. Interesting road that follows a hilly corridor through the trees, lots of cyclists out today as it is Saturday morning. Lots of hills today, my total climb in feet is over 3500, more than twice any day in the last week. Stop for a couple of breaks in quaint towns along lakes and the Mississippi. The route weaves back and forth between Wisconsin and Minnesota over the Mississippi. Sailboats on the water around lake Pepin and Lake City, a regatta or racing the local club today. Overcast and chilly but the wind is at my back most of the way. Nice finish along the Mississippi into Washaba Mn for the night. We find a local eat stop on the Mississippi along docks called Slippery's and chat with Tiffany who is single and travelling with her puppy bull dog Maddison. There is riverboat days festival here this weekend complete with a local parade. Looking forward to a good nights sleep tonight, may give beau some wine or beer to see if he will sleep past 5a!

Day 34 Cambridge to Stillwater NC

65/2134/1829 Rain! Beau is up at 4:52 am and it is raining lightly. He then wakes at 6:15a for breakfast . I have to go to the van to get his food, so I get wet and decide to stay up and see if the rain stops soon. Check the wunderkind radar and see that the front with lightning storms will pass within the hours so I settle for the newspaper and the continental breakfast from the hotel and take my time to get ready. Overcast but lightning and rain stop by 8a so I am off. I decide to deviate from the map and try MN 95 all the way to Stillwater and It is a good decision. First 20 is newly paved and a great ride. Route goes through some quaint towns and follows the Mississippi river most of the way, Wisconsin is on the other side of the river all the way. I left the camera off bike today due to rain so a few things I cannot shoot. See a sign at a coffee shop in North Branch that says " Spend Stimulus Money Here" , money for caffeine stimulus? Also pass a neat little museum of metal sculptures along the way, a few acres of metal sculptures. Will not forget the camera in the future, will take the ziploc for rain. Ride into Stillwater after a few steep hill surprises and find that this weekend is LumberJack Days Festival, so hope the motels are not full. Call Suz and she has procured a super 8 room for a premium price, but that is all there is here. The weather has cleared and my luck has held, no rain today on the ride and it is clearing by the hour. Hope the wind from the front dies down as it is coming from the south and that is my direction tomorrow. Will spend the afternoon planning the next 400 miles to Muscatine Iowa before dinner. Will try to do 100 miles per day next four days to see how I feel, so far I am not tired.

Day 3 Royalton to Cambridge Mn

86/2069/1984 Half Way! Today we broke the halfway barrier in Cambridge Mn. Poor sleep last night in the Twin Lakes Campground. Combination of bright security light, train noise, rain storms and 10,000 flies kept us up most of the night. Beau is up at 6a, so so are we. Have picnic table coffee then off for the day. Overcast and cool start. I see rain off in the distance so resign myself to get wet soon, but it doesn't happen. It's five miles back to Royalton to the bike route on rte 10 or I can make my way across the sideboards , so that is what I try, hoping not to get lost. I make it fine to route 26 and save a couple of miles in the process. Quiet start and there is a biplane barnstorming over the fields to the north, interesting to watch in the early morning sun. Along the way on old spotted coon dog ambushes me , I never saw him and he nearly gets a nip on my ankle before he poops out. Another mile up the road I smell bacon cooking at a farmhouse and my stomach rumbles in response. Breakfast today was a protein bar in camp and an apple on break later. The country roads are rough and cracked and my shoulders and neck are getting sore from the pounding continually. I would not be surprised if i have lost a few filling in my teeth from all the rattling the past few days. Bad roads are getting to be the worst part of the day, replacing the high hills in the Rockies. Bad roads slow you down and you have to pick your way among the cracks and pot holes while watching the traffic in your mirror. More dogs along the way, some just look but a collie mutt would have caught me if she didn't have an acre front yard to cover. Bad Lassie!! Suz finds a nice motel in Cambridge with Wifi and we send out our half way email with picture . We visit the local Applebee's and have a steak dinner to celebrate. Rain in the forecast so my weather luck may be running out.

Day 32 Battle Lake to Royalton

93/1983/2070 Another beautiful day on the road. Clear skies and a light wind on the way out of town. Continue to follow the Otter tail scenic byway trough rolling hills, lakes and farms. Pass one farm and get drenched in the smell of strawberries, no question what this crop is.....

I rest at mile 31 gas and grocery stop and chat with the local telephone repair guy. He welcomes me to Minnesota and I am glad I don't' have to pay by the minute ......very chatty. Meet Suz at Long Prairie and we do a BK Whopper lunch, no mayo, then on to Little falls. Not too far and we get a detour due to construction. Takes us way out of the way and I get chased by a farm dog for the first time in days. The dog catches me by surprise in the "worst case scenario" .......going uphill, but I have enough momentum to outrun him before the hill slows me down too much. All the motels in Little Falls are booked, so we head south to a RV park and van camp for the night. Nice place but lots of flies and it is hot in the sun. We have Internet but not a good connection so we do just emails and I finally beat Suz at Rummy. Leftover sandwiches for dinner and an early night at dark. Storms keep us up and we are still killing the flies that invaded the van in the morning. Tomorrow will be the halfway mileage day going into Cambridge and hope the storms let up by morning. Nice campground, they have tubing on the lakes, gooney golf, horseshoes, pool, soccer and baseball feilds.

Day 31 Fargo to Battle Lake

97/1890/2163 Picture of the Fargo police station, reminiscent of the Fargo Movie. Take the picture on my way out of town on another beautiful morning then into a detour on University Drive that takes me 4 miles out of my way through residential areas. County roads 12 and 10 are pretty rough and 10 has lots of noisy trucks. After a point I turn onto the Otter Tail scenic byway and the trucks go away and the scenery improves to small farms and lakes between rolling hills. Stop at the roadhouse grill at Lake Cormorant and have a great chicken sandwich with some locals and Harley Bikers rolling through. Hills not that steep but constant challenge and here we have trees and forest stands between fields of both wheat and corn. Farmers or their wives have planted wildflowers along the edge of their crop fields along the way and the farmhouses all are well kept with flower gardens and lots of plastic deer and bunnies in the neat lawns. Most have planted large Oak trees to shade their home plots and gardens. A young doe walks up the middle of the road around the bend just outside of Cormorant and I barely scare her off the road. In Pelican Rapids along Pelican Lake, there is a small sailboat club with a smattering of small sailboats, signs for Saturday Morning races weekly. Nice easy ride into Battle Lake and a quaint little motel with chairs on lawn outside each unit. We sit out front with Beau and enjoy the afternoon until a shower scares us in. Recommended food is Stella's downtown, not connected with the Stella's from Fargo, but another great restaurant with good service and food on a beautiful outside veranda. Another coincidence. We have a nice sleep and rest tonight.

Day 30 Cooperstown to Fargo

96/1793/2260 Early start with a coffee stop at the Cooperstown gas station/market. The good ole boys forecast no rain today but the newspaper says 40% chance, hope the good ole boys are right. Headwind again but not as strong as yesterday. Weave through wheat fields and see the first long fields of corn and soybean. So lots of turns through the back roads, so I see wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, farmhouse, wheat, wheat, corn, wheat, soybeans , wheat then a sign for Missile silo : November 33 ! Right off the road, picture above, not expecting to see a missile silo, marked right off the road in the middle of a wheat field. Well, after all that wheat, anything would surprise me! Almost expecting to see peanut butter and jelly fields to go with all that bread. Ride to Arthur, ND for a great lunch at Kelly's cafe, Suz meets me there , she passes me 1.5 miles before there. Whilst we eat, the skies open and it rains hard with some lightning. I start out again with jacket on, but it stops almost immediately and off with the jacket. Lots of turns with more rain threatening. There is some construction on County 4 and I end up taking the road in the wrong direction, the east/west are not marked. So I go 11 miles out of my way. Skirt the thunderstorms and don't get wet. Suz comes and picks me up at the end into Fargo just as the skies open up. After Fargo we head South to Stillwater in Minnesota, a four day trek but looks like more places to stop in the 80-90 mile per day range. At 80 miles per day, we have 28 more days to go.

Day 29 Lakota to Cooperstown

54/1697/2356 Cool morning start with a headwind. Wind gets stronger as the morning ages, and it is 46 miles until I turn away from the headwind. Lots of wheat again and small lakes interspersed in the wheat fields. It is Sunday morning, so not a lot of traffic, but lots of pick up trucks with boats in tow. The lakes are sometimes invisible in the rolling fields , first discernible by the darker cat tails that surround the low lying areas around the lakes. Saw an interesting site, a farmer had created a bridge across a shallow lake using old cars, trucks and farm equipment. Looked pretty nasty, lots of rust and old metal. Finally turned onto route 200 into Cooperstown with a tailwind for the last 8 miles. Quaint town and quiet on Sunday afternoon. The cafe at the motel just closed at 1:30 p so we have a choice of pizza place or getting some groceries. Looked at the pizza place and it seems to be the popular place on Sunday afternoon, lots of families doing pizza and wings after church. We decide to try the market and get a roasted chicken and veggies for the micro- microwave in the motel room. We have a easy night of cards and old movies, Urban Cowboy ( surprise) and then a Robert Ludlum thriller, Bourne Supremacy. Since we don't watch commercials at home due to TIVO, we are finding all kinds of neat stuff that we need to buy that we did not know we needed before.. Chop-0-matic, window cleaners and if we see the Lipitor heart attack guy again, he may not live much longer. There are pills getting commercials for conditions that I did not know existed, I think some conditions were developed by the drug companies because 10% of everyone watching this prime time commercial is going to think they have this condition. Tomorrow on to Fargo, last stop before Minesotta.